Lost
by kates1304
Summary: Serena, Ric and Edward One Shot - Set around May once Ric is back from saving Jess


**A/N Random Serena and Edward one shot – set around May once Ric is back from saving Jess **

He stood in the rain, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his flat cap doing a pretty poor job of keeping his hair dry. In his long overcoat and scruffy hat with the beginnings of a beard and a complexion that would have benefited from a good night's sleep he knew that people were looking at him strangely. Mothers grabbed their children's arms as they walked past him and another couple in the small swing park were eyeing him suspiciously but he simply turned his back to them. He wasn't interested in watching little Matilda play on the slide or little Tarquin on the swings, he wasn't that kind of disgusting bastard. All he cared about was the oak tree that they'd planted as a sapling years ago; the place that he knew she'd come back to today of all days. Except that she hadn't. He'd travelled a hundred miles on a packed commuter train to be here for her and yet it was close to getting dark and there was still no sign of her. Perhaps she had a shift and was going to come after work, but a quick phone call to Keller under the guise of being a worried patient relative confirmed his suspicion that she had the day off, and that was enough to worry him. For fourteen years she had made her pilgrimage to this place on this date, she'd never once missed it, and yet the park would close in half an hour and if she hadn't shown up by then, he'd have to find another way to take care of her.

ooooo

'What do you want, Edward?' Ric asked wearily. It had been a long day at the hospital; he'd started the day with a frantic telephone call at dawn from Jess who was convinced that David was trying to break into her flat – it had turned out to be a fox overturning the dustbins – and it hadn't improved from there. Guy was watching him like a hawk as if eight weeks out of theatre was going to have rusted his surgical skills away to nothing and worse still, Serena had been a no show. Doing two people's jobs was arduous at the best of times and made even more so by Guy's decision to spend the day "shadowing" him while at the same time refusing to give him a straight answer about her whereabouts, and as a result he was three hours late leaving. And now, when his mind was already on a take away and crap late night telly, he came face to face with the ghost of Christmas past loitering in the car park, and worse still he appeared to be waiting for him.

'I need your help' Edward replied, falling into step behind him.

'I'm not going to write you a reference' he replied wearily. They'd talked about this at length after Edward's contract had been terminated and he'd somehow dodged a suspension from the GMC, and he finally thought that he'd hammered the point home but apparently not.

'I don't need a reference. Was Serena at work today?'

'As it happens she had the day off' he replied slowly, stopping walking for a second to look at Edward, wondering whether there was more to Serena's absence than met the eye. After all, the woman didn't take holidays and never seemed to get sick. It was unheard of her to miss a day of work, at least up until today. 'Why?'

'I'm worried about her' Edward replied bluntly 'Today is… this time of year is difficult for her. For both of us. And she appears to have disappeared off the map'

'Have you tried her house'

'I'm not stupid' Edward replied wearily 'Her car wasn't there, but if it had been I'd still be here. After what happened a couple of months ago she's only going to push me away'

'Do you blame her?'

'Actually no, but the fact remains that it's the wrong thing for her. She needs support – she desperately needs it – and she's not going to accept it from me'

'What about her mum? What about Ellie?'

'Eleanor is at University and we've spent most of Eleanor's life trying to shield her from this…'

'This?'

'May 20th 2000' Edward replied simply 'It was the worst day of both our lives but Eleanor was only three; young enough that she remembers nothing about it. And her mum; lovely lady but not one that you want in a crisis. Adrienne has this uncanny ability to make things all about her, but this isn't; this is mainly about Serena and partly about me'

'What happened?' he pressed wearily 'In 2000, I mean?' he qualified, but he could already guess. He knew Serena perhaps better than she realised, and he'd observed that even though she had a daughter she went out of her way not to be around small babies. Jac Naylor, for instance; everybody else in the hospital had turned out for the Christening party but Serena had made her excuses and he'd found her an hour later drinking wine in her office. She'd made up some cock and bull story about having had a bad day – an Edward hangover, she called it – but he knew that there was more to it than that. There was a sense of sadness about her, and now he was beginning to think that he understood why.

'We lost our son'

ooooo

After a brief chat with Edward he'd agreed to go looking for her. After a long day at work it was the last thing that he needed, but he cared enough about Serena that he didn't want her to be alone and he also knew that if the roles were reversed she'd do the same for him. He drove to her house and noted the lack of her car, then to the park where Edward had apparently spent the day expecting her to come and visit the tree where they'd scattered their boy's ashes, and finally he'd gone back to her house and this time the car was back. It was parked haphazardly on the drive and the lights weren't on in the house, but from the garden he could see lights coming over the fence and he realised that she was outside in her garden. It took him a couple of seconds to realise that there wasn't just lights there was smoke and for a heart-stopping moment he feared that she'd gotten drunk and decided to have some kind of heartbreak induced bonfire that she'd regret bitterly in the morning.

ooooo

'Serena' he knocked on the gate but there was no answer, even on the third time that he tried, so he gave up and instead crept his hand over the top of the fence and felt for the bolt. It slid easily across with a clunk and the gate swung open and he crept into the garden, relieved when he rounded the corner and realised that the smoke wasn't from a bonfire; it was a plume of cigarette smoke in the cold, damp air.

'What are you doing here, Ric?'

'I was worried about you. It's not like you to miss work'

'We're all allowed a day off from time to time. I take it Edward sent you'

'How did you…?'

'Every year he waits for me at the park; he knows that I go there and it's the one time in the whole year that we ever properly speak. Except that this year I couldn't face it. I don't want to share today with him'

'So you decided to stay here and get drunk and smoke?'

'Are you going to tell me I can't?'

'No, it seems like an excellent way of getting through it. Leo's anniversary is the one day of the year when I allow myself a flutter. Just ten pounds and just on a horse but that moment of forgetting… sometimes I think that it's all that gets me through the day. That and Jess. Are you going to tell me what happened?'

'I presume that Edward already has'

'Only the broad strokes'

'You want the gory details?' she looked at him and raised an eyebrow, and he wondered whether his line of questioning had been uncharacteristically crass or whether she was just on the offensive. 'It was a normal pregnancy, a normal labour and a normal birth. He was perfect but there was an infection. Strep B. He must have caught it from me during the birth…' she closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose and he could tell that she was fighting off tears.

'You don't know that'

'Of course I do. They ran a swab but they picked it up too late for him. He lived for twenty-two hours and he died in my arms' she snapped, the tears flowing now and all he could do was put his arms around her. 'It tore us apart. Edward went out and drank and had his affairs – believe it or not, before that he was pretty committed to me – and I threw myself into work. We coped but our marriage was over within the year'

'And today…'

'Would have been his birthday' she put her hand in her pocket and pulled out a tiny, crumpled blue sock 'This is all that I have of him. He never even wore them but I bought them for him and it's the closest thing I have to a memento. They offered us hand and footprints and all of that but I couldn't face it. I have photographs of him but I can't even look at them'

'I understand' he murmured and he did. He had photographs of Leo and Paris stuffed in the back of a drawer in his kitchen but he never got them out. He knew that they were there and he took comfort from that but seeing them was too painful.

'That makes one of us' she took a deep breath and wiped her eyes '364 days a year I'm fine. I'm allowed one day a year of being a basket case, aren't I?'

'Yes, you are'

'Without bloody Edward sending round the cavalry'

'In his defence I think he was worried. He spent the day at the park'

'I only went to the park because it was somewhere that I could grieve without Eleanor knowing. She's moved out now and it's not an issue'

'You might like to tell him that'

'It's none of his business' she replied, stubbing out her cigarette and taking the small blue sock from him, folding it gently and putting it back into her pocket. 'He made his choice fourteen years ago. He liked the idea of a baby but I'm not sure that it ever hurt him as much as it hurt me'

'I'm pretty certain that it did. I think that if you talked to him you'd realise just how much'

'I don't want to. I don't want him to hurt; I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy'

'But he is, Serena. And not only that, he's desperately worried about you. He wouldn't have come to the hospital today if he wasn't; there are still people there who'd like his head on a stick after what he did'

'He went to the hospital?'

'Where else do you think he found me? At least let me call him and tell him you're okay'

'Fine' she huffed, arms folded across her chest. For a second there was a flash of the old Serena that he knew and sparred with but then her face crumpled again and she disappeared.

'Come here' he sighed, putting his arms around her and holding her tightly. Whether she wanted it or not she looked like a woman in desperate need of a hug and he couldn't see anybody else queuing up to provide one.

'I'm sorry' she sniffed hard and he could see that she was on the verge of tears once again.

'Don't be' he murmured 'You take the time that you need and you do what you have to do. If that's drinking, or smoking, or crying then that's fine. Whatever gets you through'

ooooo

When he'd gone and she was alone again she screwed up the packet of cigarettes and headed inside. The wine had gone straight to her head, probably because she'd polished off a bottle and a half on an empty stomach, and now she was beginning to feel queasy. She should have gone straight to bed and slept it off but instead she went upstairs to her bedroom, dropped to her knees and pulled the small blue keepsake box out from under the bed. It had been thirteen years since she'd last looked at it – she kept his sock out precisely so that she had something tangible without having to run the gauntlet of everything else that reminded her of him – but somehow speaking to Ric had made her feel stronger. For years she'd thought that there was something wrong with her because she couldn't face anything that reminded her of her little boy, and Edward hadn't helped there because his way of coping was to talk about him. That was one of many reasons why their marriage had ended; between his need to discuss it and her need not to they simply stopped speaking. When he'd finally left she'd considered letting him take something from the box – a photo, a blanket, some kind of memento of their boy – but even thinking it had been unbearably painful. He was one of the two most precious things she'd ever had and even though as she opened the box she felt the tears pouring down her face she was glad that she'd done it. She still felt empty, she had done every day for the last fourteen years of her life, but leafing slowly through the box she knew that she wouldn't have traded the twenty-two hours with him for fourteen years of never knowing what she was missing.


End file.
